Valentine's Day
by Louise24601
Summary: Valentine's Day is not a good day for Emma. Not only did she just break up with her boyfriend, but she also winds up stuck at the police station, when the renowned thief Killian Jones is arrested for a series of bank robberies. Spending the evening with a man locked in a cage isn't exactly Emma's idea of romantic. But there are still surprises in store for her. AU. Hook/Emma.


1

Emma wasn't even aware what day it was until eight thirty this morning, when she stopped by her favorite coffee shop before work, and blinked bemusedly at the strange heart-shaped motif that stared back at her from her smoldering mug, the sugary foam begging to be tasted.

"Happy Valentine's Day, hon," the clerk spoke the perfunctory formula while handing her the cup. He had time to flash her a smile and make eye-contact in the few seconds that Emma took her coffee and handed him a five-dollar bill, but even that felt as industrial as the Starbuck-sweetness of her pumpkin spice latte.

Right.

Emma made herself recover from the slight surprise – what did it matter what day of the month it was? – and tried to recollect her confidence. It shouldn't get to her, really, that this was the first Valentine's Day she spent alone in five years. No tightening to the chest, no flashing, bittersweet thought of Neal, his familiar smiling face looking devotedly at her from the fog of memory.

Two months since they'd broken up, and Emma had known, even in her weakest moments, even when loneliness was eating at her raw in the middle of the night, and the smell of him in her sheets was driving her to tears, that it had been the right thing to do.

Her girlfriends and parents had all been against it. Neal was _sweet_ man, they said, like it was an incomparable argument, and he loved her so much. Yes. Emma was unable to deny that much was true. It wasn't really that the thrill of passion had gone out the door, or that she felt Neal no longer saw her, like she'd become a familiar piece of furniture he lived with out of habit, a settled but unexciting happiness. Nothing so classic.

It was just about something she didn't feel. Something she might have never felt before, and that might have been missing in all her previous relationships. Maybe it felt like, because she had been with Neal the longest, it would be possible for her to go on for another five years, even to start a life with him, and forget about that missing _something_ that taunted her sometimes, on the occasion of sleep-deprived thoughts, before she could go to sleep.

But today, as Emma walked the ten-minute distance between the coffee shop and her workplace, every couple holding hands that came to meet her was a contemptuous mockery of her firm resolutions. In truth, the blissful smiles on their faces seemed to say that _missing something_ didn't exist, and Emma could go all over the earth looking for it if she cared to. But it would be a long way home. And it would be lonely.

Emma was so caught up in her thoughts she hardly noticed as a man, walking significantly faster than the rest of the crowd (ludicrously made up of love-drooling couples) came bumping into her, their shoulders colliding as she swiveled to try and avoid the impact. The bodily damage was minimal, however the contents her latte flew out of her glass and landed in a great caramel stain over the man's shirt.

So much for that heart-of-foam that longed to be tasted.

"Oh my God."

"For Christ's sake. Can't you look where you're going?"

Emma hardly had time to take in the man's face – angry and hasty was the surest assessment she could make. A faint Irish accent he must have tried to shake off. His black hair adding a tone of seriousness to his demeanor. The briefest flash of very blue eyes caught hers, before she looked back at the embarrassing wet blotch on the front of his shirt.

It happened so fast, she hardly had time to feel ashamed.

"I'm so sorry."

"Unbelievable."

He spoke without interrupting his walk – had never stopped walking in the first place.

Two seconds went by and, just like that, they were out of each other's lives, as abruptly as they had met.

If fate had wanted it that way, that might have been the end of that, and Emma would have only been left oddly startled, with an empty latte cup in her hand.

2

Today wasn't an awfully busy day at the station. Emma and her partner Graham split a large pile of paperwork and got started – as Graham put it: "When the cat is away, the mice will play, and when people are too busy going on dates to do something illegal, policemen do paperwork."

Apart from that, none of Emma's coworkers made any allusions to what day it was. Emma found it possible – even slightly reassuring – that they'd forgotten. Valentine's Day wasn't such a popular holiday, and this wasn't a big city where panels would advertise pink heart-shaped boxes of chocolates or romantic-weekend getaways. You could avoid it if you really wanted to – and Emma more or less willingly acknowledged that she did.

It was six p.m. by the time anything of real interest happened – Emma had actually been about to go home, having sat at a desk for just about as long as her body could endure it when one of her coworkers, who had been on patrol today, burst inside the station, leading a handcuffed individual inside.

Graham looked away from the papers he'd been going through and Emma's hand stopped in midair, as she'd been reaching for her coat. The both of them were surprised enough. Not many people were arrested in Storybrooke. There were the occasional Friday-nighters who partied hard and were known to have a fondness for public inebriety, but that had become routine. Nothing exciting.

The man was struggling a little against the cuffs – Emma took it, rather as an act of defiance than because he actually thought it might help.

"Look what the wind brought in today," the policeman sounded overly arrogant.

It was only when Emma saw the flash of recognition go through Graham's face that she paid closer attention to the prisoner –

_Should he be familiar?_ Was the first question she asked herself.

While he was being shoved in one of the few cells, which had all been perfectly empty in the past couple of weeks, Emma took in the man's shock of black hair, a white, angry face, eyes bluer than robins' eggs.

A small gasp escaped her – it sounded shamefully girlish, like the first time she'd seen a man naked – as her eyes lowered to the dried coffee stain on his shirt.

Graham's hawk eyes peered suspiciously at her, and Emma closed her still open mouth hurriedly, staring at the floor as if something of great interest was going on there.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Killian Jones, as I live and breathe."

"What?" Emma's eyes went over the man's face again, disbelievingly. Impossible.

A couple of months ago, a man called Killian Jones had gained international fame by a series of bank robberies that had involved surprisingly few people and, which was even more astonishing, had left not a single person injured. Every time, Jones had escaped the police even when it seemed obvious he was finished. Once, the police followed his car into a dead end and it all seemed very well until the driver turned out to be one of the hostages.

Jones had a way of making people cooperating without hurting them.

His threats, or so his victims swore, sounded softer than summer breeze, hardly threats at all.

In total, Jones had escaped the authorities with twelve million dollars and his charisma intact. There was always an arrogant grin for the camera. Emma remembered scoffing at it on television barely a few weeks ago –

Unthinkable that she'd seen that same face this morning and it had gone completely unrecognized.

But all these robberies had happened in different states. Jones the Thief King had seemed to exist in a different reality, one where exciting things happened, in cities where crime wasn't limited to occasional public drinking.

Emma would have never thought that Storybrooke, of all places –

"Can you please tell me why you didn't think to call for backup?" Graham got on his feet, sounding between shocked and angry as he addressed their coworker.

Emma herself couldn't think of a thing to say.

As Killian Jones was locked into his cell, she had a vague feeling his eyes swept over her with recognition, but he said nothing of it, as if obeying her unspoken prayers.

"Didn't need backup," the policeman answered. "Got a couple of reports that an individual resembling Killian Jones had been spotted in the vicinity. Thought I'd check it out, go around the neighborhood. Didn't think for a second to treat this more seriously than a joke." The cop smiled, glancing at the man in the cell with puffed-up superiority. "Guess even the magician of bank robbers can get caught off hand. Not looking so tough without your tricks, are you?"

The prisoner didn't acknowledge this with so much as a facial response.

Emma thought of telling her colleague to stop. It didn't feel smart, teasing a lion in a cage. Especially one that had such a legendary history of getting out of them.

"Did you find the money?" Graham asked.

The policeman was still smiling, but it lost just enough genuineness that Emma could guess the answer. "Not yet. Just a few hundred dollars he carried on him. Still searching the motel room he was found in. We'll find it though. No worries."

That sounded highly unlikely. Searching a motel room from top to bottom could only take so long. But Emma said nothing of this.

She was still trying not to look at the prisoner, although he seemed to be looking at her. Emma's inflamed cheeks were a valentine-red.

"Well," Graham said, relaxing a little, but still sounding displeased for some reason. "Congratulations, I guess. You did a good job."

"Now, you can take over," the policeman answered, flashed them both a grin. "Got to go home early tonight. I'll leave it to you to notify the chief, the FBI – all the important folks. Yeah? Got plans tonight."

"You better be joking." Emma heard herself say.

"Nuh-huh. The missus will kill me if I bail on her."

The policeman disappeared out the door, leaving Emma and Graham to stare disbelievingly at the door – then at the cell, where the prisoner was patiently brooding.

It struck Emma that the coffee stain on his shirt, which had given the deep-red colored material a yet darker tone, had taken the vague shape of a heart.

3

Graham helped her with the incessant phone calls – there were not only people to notify, but also calls to answer from a long list of people who wanted to verify the rumors. Press agents wanted interviews. Excited citizens wanted their participation noted – yes, I _did_ think I saw someone like him prowling around the neighborhood. Where was this? Why, near the church. Other callers certified they'd seen Jones behind the bank, at the library or at Ruby's diner. Of course, everyone in Storybrooke thought they'd seen Jones up to no good in different parts of town, simultaneously.

Emma's desk and Graham's were in the main room, just opposite one another, and near the cell where Killian was now looking at them with amusement.

At some point, he dared a delighted remark, "Look at all the work I'm giving you."

"Hope you like work, Jones," Graham replied. "Pretty soon, you'll be working yourself. For nineteen cents an hour."

Emma tried not to take part in such puerile attacks. For starters, she could feel the power in Jones's silence –

If he were to mention she'd happened to run into him, _literally_ run into him, this morning, and had failed to recognize a worldwide famous criminal… Well, it wouldn't sit too well on her résumé when she'd be looking for a new job. Which she would be, no doubt, before the end of the day.

It was around eight thirty when the phone calls started decreasing. Graham, Emma noticed, was puffing out loud sighs and glancing at his watch repeatedly.

At some point, their eyes came at an intersection where she detected apology and a tinge of embarrassment.

Emma didn't even need to ask. She only said, "I don't believe this."

"I'm sorry. I know this is ridiculous –"

"I didn't even know you were dating, Graham."

"It's recent."

"Who is she?"

"She's extremely bossy and likely to spank my ass if I'm any later than I'm already am."

"I think those are details I could have lived without."

Graham gave Jones's cell a brief look. "You're going to be okay, if I leave you?"

"Of course." A little stunned. "I mean – it's my job."

Her cheeks burned at the slight sneer coming from the cell. Graham's brows furrowed, and she worked actively on ignoring it.

"Go on then. Don't get yourself in trouble."

"No," Killian Jones agreed, "that'd be a shame."

Graham cast a last look at the room before he gathered his stuff and left – looking very sorry, and just a little worried. After all, Killian had been known to slip through the police's fingers before. Who knew what he could do, even locked in a cell…

"Well," Killian said, and Emma felt the effect of his smile, even from where she was sitting, even despite the bars between them. "And then there were two."

Oh, yes.

She could readily imagine how Killian Jones got his way, smiling like that. The world must have seemed a series of continually open doors, to him – an all you can eat table.

That evening, he looked especially hungry.

"And you don't have anywhere to be?" He said, the easy question.

"I have a _very_ important place to be." She retorted.

The heart-shaped stain on his shirt winked mockingly at her as the prisoner moved in his cell – stood up from the bed where he'd been sitting so he could walk closer, until his hands closed casually around the bars.

He was so at ease, you'd think he'd been in a cell like this one dozens of times.

"I'm very sorry for how rude I was this morning."

"Please, don't mention it."

"Yes," he chuckled, "that's sit all right with you, wouldn't it? I don't reckon allowing a wanted felon to just walk away from you is something you'd want your colleagues to know."

"If you're thinking you can blackmail me into letting you out –"

"Now, don't get so serious about it." He laughed. A genuine, somewhat honest laughter. Yes, those were the sort of individuals you should be careful with, Emma felt. The kind that –

What was the right word?

– _bewitched_ you. Insinuated themselves straight into your thoughts, made their ideas feel like your own.

"So." Emma said after a moment. It was important that Killian didn't notice her heartbeat was spiking up – though he was in a cell, though she was comfortably sitting behind a desk, with a gun hooked at her hip, there was a predatory feel to Killian's charming ways that made her especially wary. "What were you doing, walking down a crowded street, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be good at hiding."

"Crowded places are good for hiding."

"Look where they got you."

"I was trying to catch a train," he admitted. "Which accounts for my unforgivably rude behavior. Obviously enough, I didn't get it."

"Too many cops?"

"Precisely." His grin widened a full inch. "I would have never thought _you_ were one, darling."

"Of course not." Emma stiffened a little, though she smiled back in kind. "Then, you would have been more careful with me. You're always careful, aren't you, Killian, with the people you plan on using?"

He took on a hurt look. "You make me sound like some awful manipulator."

"Please, don't act surprised. You strike me as the sort of man who'd watch yourself on TV."

"So?"

"So, you _do_ know what they're painting you out to be." Emma paused, just for a few seconds – analyzing the face of her prisoner carefully. "You never hurt anyone in your big robberies."

"Correct." He smiled proudly.

"Your hostages are clear on the fact that you only threaten."

"I prefer the word _persuade_."

"I've heard a few testimonies from your victims."

He winced. "That isn't what _I_'d call them."

"They all say you made it sound so easy to give you what you wanted. To open up the safe. To lead you outside safely. To help you escape." Emma only stopped when she realized her words were applause to his ears. "You think it's not wrong, maybe? That you're not hurting people? Most of them suffer from acute psychological distress."

"Naturally," he shrugged, "since they'll never see me again."

"See, and it's that very vanity that got you." Emma said. "You could have been on your way across the world right now, but you got complacent. What were you thinking," she couldn't help but ask, "coming to Storybrooke? Everything here gets talked about."

He nodded, guilty as charged. "Yes, it was a little green of me." There was still that smile playing about his lips. "If I'm going to confess, you should know I'm awfully sentimental."

"Oh, are you."

"I grew up here."

Now, Emma was genuinely surprised. "What? No, that would be –"

"All over the press? Surely. Only back then, I wasn't known as Killian Jones." He shrugged. "That's my _nom de plume_."

"And what's the real name?"

She couldn't deny there was a professional interest here. Sure enough, Jones might be toying and lying to her face, but she'd take her chances.

Those thoughts didn't escape him. She could see how he considered them. "Colin," he answered. "You might as well be the first to know. Soon, they'll be getting the result from my fingerprints, anyway."

"And you want me to believe this is your hometown?"

"It was, for the first eight years of my life." He twinkled at her. "I don't blame you for not remembering me. I wasn't quite as sociable in my early years."

Emma shook her head. Tried to remember an eight-year-old, dark-haired boy that would look at all like the man currently sitting in her cell.

"Colin." She repeated.

"That's right."

"You're bullshitting me."

He chuckled. "Then what would I be doing in Storybrooke, darling? Robbing the local diner?"

Emma's pulse throbbed yet a little harder as his hands tightened around the bars.

_Don't talk to him_, caution whispered in her brain. _When you were watching his victims on television, all you could think was to shout at them, you should never have _talked_ to him_.

But Emma's memory was at work and it was too late to backpedal.

Ultimately, it was the eyes she remembered.

Blue had always been her favorite color. A popular choice – who doesn't like the sky or the ocean?

It came back to her, first only as a blurred flash, like looking at a picture at the bottom of a pool of water. Blue, earnest eyes looking at her, looking very old on a young face.

"You lived in the old house at the edge of the village," she remembered. "Your mother's name was –"

"Dana O'Donoghue."

Emma couldn't tell whether she was smiling. The memory had unlocked, and she had a feeling she was standing in front of a door that had been closed forever, that she had never remembered existed until tonight.

Killian looked very amused. "Don't take this the wrong way. I don't remember _you_ at all."

"It was the summer before you moved."

Emma recalled quite well, because her parents had been very happy about the news. The O'Donoghues were, after all, immigrants, and Storybrooke's small-town mentality wasn't always a blessing. The second thing that unclogged Emma's memory, after the eyes, was the accent.

It had gotten slighter over the years, but Emma wouldn't forget. It was the first time she'd met someone from Ireland.

"I'd walked a little further than my parents usually allowed."

Warnings flashed in her head, for sharing something personal, but Emma seemed unable to hear them, was carried by the memory, like flowing on her back down a river both strange and familiar.

"I was wearing a blue dress and a blue ribbon."

"Oh."

A spark glistened in Killian's eyes. Like something distant or dead had suddenly come alive.

"Yes, the blue dress," he smiled. "I said –"

"'Lost your way in Wonderland, Alice?'"

The air around them was calm but unpredictable, as if it might transform from one second to the next, and take on the colors of a stray image from the past neither of them had thought of in years.

"You looked frightened," he said.

Something had changed in his voice. Sincerity, and a touch of regret. No more of that show of self-love she'd never bought to begin with.

"I don't think I was." She admitted. "My parents had told me to stay away from your house." He shrugged without surprise. "But you didn't look dangerous. I thought _you_ looked frightened."

He failed to comment.

"That was it, right?" She said. "Someone called after me. I think it was my dad. Then I ran off – we didn't say more than a few words to each other."

"I didn't get your name."

"I knew yours from my parents."

He smiled – a slightly different smile from how it'd been before. "You said you liked my eyes."

"Well," Emma lowered her gaze, hoped the blush on her cheeks would be discreet. "The things kids say."

"Right."

But something had changed about the atmosphere of the police station, with only the two of them. A feel of intimacy.

Emma thought it wasn't completely pointless to ask, "My partners won't find the money, will they?"

"No." He answered. "It's gone."

"You've spent it?"

"Considering the amount I've stolen, you'd be a little impressed if I could spend _all_ of it so fast. No," he shook his head, more earnestly. "I shared it."

"With whom?"

"Strangers." He shrugged. "I've been good at breaking and entering for a long time, right? When I was younger, I had to break into people's homes because I needed the money. But that always felt wrong, just taking things without planning to return them – so I told myself, one day, I would. With interests."

Emma chuckled. Pure stun. No amusement. "You scattered millions of dollars amongst people you'd stolen from as a child?"

"No. I also gave to houses that looked like their own kids might be stealing a few bucks here and there when they could." Again, he shrugged. "I view it as an act of citizenry."

"And didn't they talk about it? Wouldn't have some local newspaper caught wind of it? People suddenly waking up with loads of money in their homes –"

"You'd be surprised how people can keep a secret when it's in their own interest, Emma." Killian answered.

Their eyes on each other were cool and warm. It was that same sudden, inexplicable trust as sinking your feet in the ocean, feeling the waves lick your body – giving into it, slowly, then all at once, the troubles and pains of your life carried away by the undertow.

"Well."

By the time Killian broke the silence, Emma couldn't tell how much time they'd spent, staring and dazed, spellbound, in some inexplicable way. But surely, it was high time they returned to solid ground. Emma felt rational again, if a little shaken – as shaken as she would have been if the sky had suddenly started raining stars, that would have sprinkled her hair and clothes with glistening dust.

"Look at us now," he said.

"Yes."

"And we've met not once, today, but twice."

Emma kept silent. She wished he wouldn't go on about how slim the odds were. The young woman didn't believe in fate.

When she looked back at him, Emma realized Killian's smile was charming again – but still not quite the same smile that was on his face when he'd walked in. "Considering my record," he said, "I shouldn't spend longer than – what, ten years in prison?"

"So you're an optimist."

"How about that?" He said, paying no mind to her comment. "You tell me your name, and when I get out of there, I'll find you – and I'll buy you dinner."

Emma laughed. Hadn't laughed so honestly in years. Killian was laughing too, a still dazed chuckle, not in the least insulted.

"Wouldn't that be something?" He beamed. "A cop going on a date with an ex-con?"

"Yeah, right."

"I'm serious, though."

He did owe her five bucks for spilling her coffee that morning. She thought it wiser to let it go.

"I don't doubt," she said, "that you're _always_ serious." On a more casual tone, "Why don't you take one thing at a time? See how you cope with facing several years in prison."

"I thought about you, you know."

Emma said nothing. There were no safe words she could think to speak.

"The little girl in the blue dress."

His hands around the bars were clenched tight, like they were anchors drilling him to solid ground.

"I think I'll continue to think about you after today, if that's all right."

Sharp reprimands crossed Emma's mind but didn't make it past her lips.

The man _was_ charming. She could hear all of his victims' testimonies again – _you don't know how easy he made it sound, to give in to his demands._ _So sensible. His voice was so _soft.

"Do you take me for a fool?"

No disdain in her voice. Like she actually expected an honest answer.

A devious touch sneaked into Killian's grin. "To speak the truth, I can think of a number of ways I'd like to take you. But for a fool, no. I like my women smart."

"Yeah." Both serious and amused. "And I like my men _legal_."

"Ha." He chuckled, lowering his eyes and pressing his head against the bars before he looked up again. "Maybe so. But you know, I think, all the same, that you'll think about me as well."

And Emma did, even long after the buzz of Killian Jones's arrest had faded away.

At least every Valentine's Day.

…

**End Notes**: I actually started this fic on Valentine's Day and completely forgot about it since. Please let me know your thoughts!


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